In his second career as a media personality for ESPN, Jalen Rose has developed a reputation for being one of the most entertaining and unfiltered storytellers in the business.
As a handful of Indiana students discovered following Saturday night’s Michigan-Indiana game in Bloomington, that’s not an act. That’s Rose’s personality.
According to those aforementioned students, some of whom contributed to a Reddit thread on Rose, the former Michigan star and NBA journeyman stayed up with them until 5:00 AM Sunday morning hanging out and talking basketball. This despite the fact that he had an early morning flight to catch to New Orleans for the Super Bowl.
Among the anecdotes he allegedly shared with the awestruck students, according to one Redditor:
- “He seemed fairly confident that MJ was hungover in Game 5 of the ’97 Finals and didn’t actually have the flu” [Note: Rose has implied this before on Grantland]
- On Reggie Miller’s house burning down in 1997: “He is SURE [ex-wife] Marita Miller burned down Reggie’s house”
- “Joked how he couldn’t smoke weed because ‘man I work for Disney!! You don’t think they drug test us?’ ”
- “He kept asking how the hell you work a bong and after getting chirped for it, he goes ‘PLEASE. black people only use pipes if they’re smoking crack’ “
- “He claimed he could hit 17 of 20 3s RIGHT THEN AND THERE, everyone howled and said no way, he just laughed and kept yelling ‘f*** ya’ll f*** ya’ll’ “
- “5am rolls around and he gets asked what time his flight is to leave for New Orleans – ‘oh I dunno….about 2 and a half hours’ “
- On Jamaal Tinsley: ‘The dude drank vodka more often than water…AND I let him live with me! For a MONTH!’ ”
The thread was deleted on Reddit but not before the story went viral, prompting reporters to ask Rose about it Monday night in Ann Arbor.
“I saw that, I heard about that,” Rose said, according to MLive.com. “Fortunately for me, I wasn’t doing anything (wrong)? Right?
“I wasn’t doing anything in the pictures, right?”
Rose was cryptic when asked about the stories told on Reddit:
“I’m a huge Michael Jordan fan, got a lot of respect for him,” Rose said. “I’ve got a lot of respect for Reggie Miller.
“Those were comments that I guess somebody was attributing that I said. Those weren’t quotes. I saw a couple of curse words on there that I haven’t cursed since 2002.”
Asked again if he denied any of the comments, Rose replied: “I’m saying they weren’t quotes.”
That’s not exactly the strongest denial as Rose unfortunately learned that whatever happens in Bloomington doesn’t stay in Bloomington.
